caravanned to Champ

Tended to some miscellaneous tasks and chores before leaving.

I woke around 9:30 or 10. Someone was cleaning the downstairs bathroom. Millie? I was groggy. Katrina was already gone.

I checked with Millie that we had enough coffee filters and coffee.

Revised the spreadsheet for the donations, with new money dropped in by Manuel G. Thanks!

Show Manuel S the skymaps.com web site. Urged him to use it. The free star charts would help him learn some of his alignment stars. Alternatively, I suggested he do a bit of research. Perhaps there were web sites or books with the alignment stars documented.

I tried to reprogram the garage router and antenna but I could not get into the router. Despite Matthew's notes. I de-energised it. For the first time, I had a close look at his ethernet wiring work in the garage. I wasn't too happy. I hope we'll get 1 gigabit performance given the amount of exposed, untwisted wire.

While packing up stuff in the GBO, I spotted Manny G's SCT telescope on the picnic table, near the end, perched on its dovetail plate. Holy smokes. I thought he learned his lesson! I called him out of the observatory. Reprimanded him. What a nut! Likes to live dangerously, I guess.

I returned some items: cleaned towels and linens; the extra blank OHAP quiz forms.

I urged Manuel G to go to RASC meeting tonight. Jim C was to talk on collimation. That'd be good.

At 12:45 PM, I departed the CAO with Millie and Dietmar and Lora and Phil. We left behind the Manuels. And headed for Champ Burger! Yes. I'd finally get a tasty burger.

Dietmar pulled over at Ravenna. Manuel G had called—couldn't find his car keys! Oh boy. He suspected he left them in the house. He didn't look too happy but Dietmar turned around to help. I was surprised when he caught up to me in Shelburne. Manuel G had found his keys in his vehicle. The good news was that Millie and Dietmar were able to join us for lunch. We had some liquid sunshine as we finished up.

I made a note to offer Katrina my shortwave radio. She seemed interested in higher precision for timing astronomical events. And I made a note to bring my 8" solar filter to the CAO for Millie to try. Without a filter, she did not fly her RC 'scope.